Model-viewer: Is it possible to trigger Scene Viewer from a WebView?

[satputerohan]

Hey,
I am trying to achive a simple demo where I embed a webpage (an html on my webserver with nothing but a model viewer component with dependencies) in my Android and iOS Xamarin app.

I am able to view the model and interact with it, but I am getting no ar-fallback error when I try to take it to Scene Viewer. Is it possible to launch Scene Viewer from inside a Webview from my app?

[cdata]

@satputerohan this topic veers a little bit outside of my expertise, but my best answer is two parts:

1. Based on previous reports, it does not seem to be possible to launch Scene Viewer from an unmodified WebView on Android
2. It is hypothetically possible to launch Scene Viewer by manually handling the intent:// URL triggered by <model-viewer> and triggering the intent yourself with a modified WebView. See this Stack Overflow answer for an example of what I mean by "modified" in this case.

In general, it should be possible to trigger Scene Viewer so long as the actual glTF file you are loading is hosted on a secure origin.

[satputerohan]

Hi @cdata,
I was wondering what intent I should trigger as I am getting following when I try it:
No Activity found to handle Intent { act=android.intent.action.VIEW typ=model/gltf-binary flg=0x1 pkg=com.google.ar.core }
I am trying to launch the viewer.ViewerActivity. Have you got any idea about this?

[PerspectivesLab]

Hi @satputerohan @cdata you can do it this way in android java:

       @Override
        public boolean shouldOverrideUrlLoading(WebView view, String url) {


            Intent intent;
            // Perform generic parsing of the URI to turn it into an Intent.
            try {
                intent = Intent.parseUri(url, Intent.URI_INTENT_SCHEME);
            } catch (Exception ex) {
                Log.w("", "Bad URI %s");//, url, ex);
                return false;
            }
            // Sanitize the Intent, ensuring web pages can not bypass browser
            // security (only access to BROWSABLE activities).
            intent.addCategory(Intent.CATEGORY_BROWSABLE);
            //intent.setComponent(null);
            intent.setComponent(new ComponentName("com.google.ar.core", "com.google.ar.core.viewer.IntentForwardActivity"));
            Intent selector = intent.getSelector();
            if (selector != null) {
                selector.addCategory(Intent.CATEGORY_BROWSABLE);
                selector.setComponent(null);
            }

            // Pass the package name as application ID so that the intent from the
            // same application can be opened in the same tab.
            intent.putExtra(Browser.EXTRA_APPLICATION_ID, "com.google.chrome");

            try {
                view.getContext().startActivity(intent);
                return true;
            } catch (ActivityNotFoundException ex) {
                Log.w("", "No application can handle %s");
            } catch (SecurityException ex) {
                // This can happen if the Activity is exported="true", guarded by a permission, and sets
                // up an intent filter matching this intent. This is a valid configuration for an
                // Activity, so instead of crashing, we catch the exception and do nothing. See
                // https://crbug.com/808494 and https://crbug.com/889300.
                Log.w("", "SecurityException when starting intent for %s");
            }

            return false;
}

[cdata]

@PerspectivesLab that looks familiar :) did you borrow it from the Android Chrome source tree?

[PerspectivesLab]

@PerspectivesLab that looks familiar :) did you borrow it from the Android Chrome source tree?

ohhhhh dyeah !!!

[artob]

@PerspectivesLab Kudos for your earlier workaround suggest here, it helped me figure out a solution to this problem in my Flutter plugin that embeds <model-viewer> in an Android WebView.

[PerspectivesLab]

@artob glad to help !